Son of Man, it shall be as it was in the days before the flood-the earth was filled with violence: the word signifies injustice, rapine, and robbery. A state of violence is contrary to a state of security; for violence taketh away what government was ordained to secure. The heathen poet, describing the corrupt state of men before the flood, takes care not to omit this remarkable circumstance; telling us in his language, that the fury of discord then prevailed far and wide over the world.

The city of Sodom was in a state of anarchy when it was destroyed. All the people, old and young, assembled themselves without restraint from every quarter, to commit acts of wickedness and violence. They mocked at all authority in others, and were judges and executioners in their own right.—This one fellow (said they) came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge: now will we deal worse with thee than with them t.

Before Jerusalem was destroyed, the fact is undoubted in history, that they were plagued with tumults and intestine commotions. The benefit of Government was lost amongst them; and troops of thieves and rioters, with self-commissioned leaders, plundered the city in a miserable manner, at their own discretion: till all were involved in one common catastrophe, when the place was stormed by the Romans,

From these cases the application is short and certain-As it was before the flood, as it was in Sodom, as it was in Jerusalem, so shall it be before the end of the world.

If we go now to the text, we find, from the con

*Qua terra patet, fera regnat Erynnis-OvID. Met. i. 241. + Gen. xix. 9.

text, that our Lord is there describing those signs which shall precede, not the destruction of Jerusalem, but his own glorious advent to judge the world. The words of the passage cannot with any propriety be confined to the people of a city or a nation: being evidently spoken of the nations of the Gentiles, and of the whole habitable world.

Yet this application brings us into a difficulty: for if the nations of the world are intended, the distress here mentioned seems too partial in its kind to reach them. None but people on the sea coast can be terrified with the raging of the sea; on which consideration, some commentators have supposed that the distress here spoken of was meant of Galilee and of the sea of Tiberias. But this is out of all reason, when compared with the context: we are therefore compelled to take a method of interpreting, which will bring the language up to the occasion. The words of a prophecy seem to speak of one thing, when another thing is intended; and that must be the case here. We know there is a sort of sea to be found in every inland country; the figurative sea of popular tumult and rebellious violence; much more terrible and destructive to the peace of mankind, than all the storms which agitate the ocean.

The poet and the prophet describe things rather by their properties and effects, than by their vulgar names. Therefore the scripture compares the multitudes of the world to the waters of the sea; and the tumultuous rage of the people to the terrors of a storm. In the prophet Isaiah, the abundance of the seat is put for the forces of the Gentile world, which should be turned to the church of Christ. In the same style,

The words in the original are wy and oxuuern.

+ Isaiah, lx. 5.

the harlot in the Revelation of St. John is said to sit on many waters; as signifying the imperial power of heathenism which ruled over the Gentile world. And in a vision of Daniel, the four beasts, representing the four monarchies, rise out of a sea †, on which the four winds of heaven are all blowing at once; to signify, that they all arose from among the Heathens. Sometimes the text carries its own comment with it -Deliver me out of great waters, saith the Psalmist, from the hands of strange children. ‡

The waves of the sea, which lift up their heads, and assemble themselves farther than the eye can distinguish them, exhibit a grand image of an innume rable multitude of people; whom they resemble farther by the noise they make, whence the voice of a great multitude is compared to the voice of many waters. But, above all, the waves of the sea are most like to a multitude when tumult and disorder prevail amongst them. As the waters are then driven together, each wave that follows endeavouring to mount over that which is before, and all dashing against the shore, from whence they are beaten back into the sea by their own violence; such are the people, when they are assembled together without order or government. The turbulent passions of men are never to be restrained from breaking out into noise and confusion, but by that power which over-rules the waters of the sea. God is therefore celebrated for the one under a figure of the other: thou stillest the raging of the sea, and the noise of his waves, and the madness of the people §. When wild passions prevail amongst men, and there is no authority to keep them in awe, then society becomes what the sea is, when the winds are let loose upon it. There is then no more reason or

Rev. xvii. 1. † Dan. vii. 2, 3. Psalm cxliv. 7. § Psalm lxv. 7.

judgment in the one than in the other: all is drowned with noise, and lost in the confusion of a storm. And herein we may view the difference between the power of government and the power of the people : for the power of government is ordained of God, and supported by his providence, to still that storm, and prevent that confusion, which the power of the people raises. The one is the only remedy against the other. The one is the gift of God to a nation that serveth him; the other is his curse upon the disobedient who are departed from him. And as there is not a sight more agreeable to the goodness of God, and the sense of all wise and good men, than a nation well appointed under good laws, and strict authority, and unanimous in exerting their strength under their lawful leader, for their common defence against their enemies so is there not a spectacle upon earth more desirable to the devil, than the dissolution of law and authority, and the breaking of national power by the mercenary jarrings and contentions of opposite interests and factions. The disobedience which arises from civil dissention is a mother sin, which brings forth a brood of vipers. Where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work. And that this shall prevail more and more, and rise to a tremendous height in the last times, so as to unsettle the world, and keep men in a miserable state of fear and suspense, is not only to be expected from what the scripture hath intimated, but from the state and temper of the world in this respect; which it behoves us impartially to consider.

When the Reformation took place in Europe, many tares were sown among the good grain of that time; and one of the most pernicious was the claim of what is called liberty; a very good word, when taken in a

good sense; but used of old as a cloak of maliciousness, and always most affected by those who were themselves the servants of corruption. The thing recommended at first was religious liberty; and the notion stole into the hearts of men, because it seemed to be a necessary remedy against the odious abuses and encroachments of the church of Rome. However, even in this sense, fearful were the effects of it, when fanatics took it up, and acted in virtue of it, as their own wild imaginations directed; which is abundantly confirmed by the history of the Anabaptists in Germany, and such like people. But of late years, men have taken another monstrous stride; and, from asserting religious liberty, against the Pope, have gone on to claim a natural liberty, against all kings and rulers; with an equality of right in every man that is born to power and property. This they never could do as Christians, or men of common sense; so they have assumed the new name of philosophers; under which they set up a new religion of their own, with doctrines opposite in every article to those of Christianity.

The learning which is called classical is necessary to scholars, and hath many eminent uses; but the vain affectation of it is always dangerous. This it is which hath induced many amongst us to emulate the furious spirit which prevailed in heathen patriots; and to admire that most which was worst amongst them. They have little to say of the peace and splendour of the Augustan age, when men of greatest genius were loyalists; of the greatness of the empire under Trajan; its conversion under Constantine; its order and jurisprudence under Justinian: but their favourites are the savage Brutus, the sneaking Vale